It served well - but I just sold mine because....

Hello,

Let me begin by saying I am not very intense as a purist - but I am a passionate enthusiast of digital photography. As such, I had the same issues cited elsewhere with the zoom telescoping out under it's own weight AND most disturbing was the degrading function in the zooming mechanism. It was less smooth then when new - and it did have a little deflection in the barrel when extended WHICH is NOT very encouraging. So... as humble as I may be... I replaced this with a Tamron 18-200 f3.5-6.3. Yeah, it's wider and slower - with test results suggesting the long end is a cut softer and slower than the 28-200 - but it is brand new, lighter, more compact and has a zoom lock. Oh well... not trying to promote another lense - as I have a couple other canon lenses too - but this 28-200 did not hold up well in my humble opinion. If you're gentle with your equipment then your 28-200 might never wear out like mine did - but I am a bit of a ruthless high volume user. I shot an estimated 15-18,000+ frames through my 28-200 in 2 years. Oh yeah, final remark... the micro USM gets bashed for being "cheaper" then the regular USM motors - but I found it to be quite good as is. I think that is likely to be a-LOT.